Voice of Revolution

Americans’ Growing Determination to End Iraq War

Military Families, Veterans and Peace Groups Confront Bush

August 6, 2005, Crawford, Texas: Activists loading up cars and the Veterans for Peace Impeachment Tour Bus. On the bus with Cindy Sheehan was GSFP member Amy Branham, a contingent from the Veterans for Peace conference, Iraq Veterans against War and Vietnam Vets for Peace. Activists then caravaned to the Crawford Peace House where the members of the Crawford Peace House and Code Pink joined them.

Coming out of the growing anger with the government and the movement to -Impeach War Criminal Bush — a movement that is growing despite a near complete media blackout on the growing unity of the American people against Bush and his crimes — military families, veterans and peace groups organized actions outside Bush’s vacation home in Crawford, Texas this past Saturday, August 6.

More than 50 people representing many groups and collectives joined together outside Bush’s ranch for a vigil that lasted throughout the night. The demand of those assembled, like the demands of the majority of Americans, is to remove U.S. military forces from Iraq and bring them home immediately and that the President be held accountable for the crimes he has committed. To this end, Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP), a main organizer of the event, is demanding a meeting with the President to present these demands. She still remains outside Bush’s ranch waiting for him to answer. Reflecting the growing determination of Americans, she has vowed to camp out on the spot until Bush agrees to see her, even if it means spending all of August beside a dusty road under the broiling sun.

The government’s attempt to intimidate and convince the activists to leave patently failed, as the following first-hand report posted to the GSFP website reveals: “We had for the first few hours minimally 10 Secret Service (SS) agents watching us.” We were “advised several times by the SS that if we remained where we were we could get hurt.”

“About 3 hours into the vigil all the SS disappeared and a very odd man appeared yelling at us ‘are you going to do the same thing to the Iraq war soldiers as you did to the Vietnam vets?’ We assured him that we supported the soldiers. He had all the usual NeoCon comebacks. He wanted one of us to take a picture of him for Rush Limbaugh. We complied.

“A strange thing then happened. About 4 SUVs surrounded our encampment and close to 20 SS agents spread out around us. Two well-manicured men approached Cindy. They introduced themselves as ‘Joe,’ Deputy Chief of Staff and Steve Hadley, National Security Advisor. The President had sent them out to speak to us. They asked Cindy what she wanted from the President and of course she told them.… They kept towing the party line and Cindy kept shooting them down with undeniable facts. I think they left a bit surprised at who they were dealing with. Oh and the man who was yelling at us, as soon as the SS arrived he stated ‘my job here is done’ and drove away. I think he was sent to see how quickly our buttons could be pushed.”

Mrs. Sheehan’s son died as a soldier in Iraq, and she is reflective of the growing determination of Americans to end the war against Iraq and bring the troops home now. Standing with thousands throughout the U.S., she was active in and spoke at one of the more than 300 July 23 After Downing Street actions opposing the Iraq war and demanding Bush’s impeachment (see the August 5th issue of Buffalo Forum) as well as the June 16 hearing on the Resolution of Inquiry to impeach President Bush sponsored by Representative Conyers.

Below we reprint Cindy Sheehan’s rallying statement calling for the August 6 actions.

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Dear Friends and Supporters,

George Bush said speaking about the dreadful loss of life in Iraq in August: (08/03/05): “We have to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by completing the mission. The families of the fallen can be assured that they died for a noble cause.”

In reaction to these two assinine and hurtful statements, members of Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP) are going to George’s vacation home in Crawford, Texas this Saturday, August 6th at 11:00am to confront him on these two statements.

1) We want our loved ones sacrifices to be honored by bringing our nation’s sons and daughters home from the travesty that is Iraq immediately, since this war is based on horrendous lies and deceptions. Just because our children are dead, why would we want any more families to suffer the same pain and devastation that we are?

2) We would like for him to explain this “noble cause” to us and ask him why Jenna and Barbara are not in harm’s way, if the cause is so noble.

3) If George is not ready to send the twins, then he should bring our troops home immediately. We will demand a speedy withdrawal.

GSFP will be joined by members of Veteran’s for Peace (VFP), Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Code Pink, and Crawford Peace House.

We GSFP members will not leave until we get answers from George Bush. We deserve and expect him to welcome us with answers as to why our loved ones are dead.

Every worker for peace, every worker for justice, every person who wants our country back are welcomed to join us on Saturday. Show George Bush that we mean business. Be there to support us family members who have already been through so much. We are fighting for our country, our world, especially the children.

Crawford is about 2 hours from Dallas where the VFP Convention is being held this weekend. There will be car pools from the convention.

Honor our loved ones’ sacrifices: Bring our troops home now!

Bring water and hats...we plan on staying until we are arrested or satisfied with the answers. (I am betting on jail).

Please pass this email on to your friends, lists, and media.

For more info call Cindy Sheehan: 707-365-7750

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Pentagon Advances Plans for Military Rule Inside the U.S.

Less than six weeks after the Pentagon released its Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support (see the August 7 update), which elaborates plans and practical measures to put the military at the center of life inside the country, the military has gone further and developed what it calls a domestic “anti-terror war plan.” The Pentagon says that the military will be used in the U.S. in cases of “civil disturbance,” and whenever the military decides that civilian response to “threats” are not sufficient.

The plan was drafted by the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), responsible for military actions for North America, including the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It puts forward the authority of the military to act in a crisis, with or without direct presidential orders.

The plan envisions fifteen potential crisis scenarios, ranging from “low-end” scenarios involving “crowd-control missions,” to “high-end” scenarios, such as several simultaneous “mass-casualty” events. These could include bombings, biological or chemical emergencies, medical emergencies, and so forth.

According to the plan, quick-reaction forces comprising at least 3,000 soldiers will be used for each incident, high or low-end. The manpower can be easily increased depending on the extent of the damage and the military’s determination that civilian response teams could be “overwhelmed.” The military also says there are situations when National Guard units could begin rounding up people for mass detentions.

The new plan provides for the military to take charge of situations, in effect subordinating people, resources, and facilities to its dictate. Senior NORTHCOM officers add that any military takeover inside the country, likely beginning in specific areas, could become permanent.

About 1,400 National Guard troops have already been formed into a dozen regional response units, while smaller quick-reaction forces have been set up in each of the 50 states. NORTHCOM also has the power to mobilize four active-duty Army battalions, as well as Navy and Coast Guard ships and air defense fighter jets.

The National Guard is a main force in the plans as it is exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which prohibits the use of the Army for law enforcement inside the country. Even so, many people consider the entire NORTHCOM plan to be against existing law.

Both the plan and the overall Homeland Defense Strategy justify these military actions by saying September 11 and the “war on terrorism” mandate that the military have the “freedom to act” at will, inside and outside the country, in all waters and airspace, in outer space and cyberspace.

In related news, a June 29 press release from NORTHCOM describes a live drill aimed at putting into practice the military chain of command. The drill will be conducted by the Joint Task Force-Civil Support (JTF-CS) forces in Charleston, South Carolina. It includes military and civilian forces and is designed, like the Joint Task Force itself, to get all the civilian forces used to accepting and following military command. This includes medical personnel, firefighters, communications and transportation workers, and so forth.

While NORTHCOM was only established in October 2002, its headquarters staff of 640 is already larger than that of the Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military operations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The Pentagon is also in the process of transferring 70,000 troops to the U.S., for potential use by NORTHCOM.

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Hardial Bains

Our Comrade, Our Friend

This year marks the 35th Anniversary of our sister party, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). As part of its anniversary celebrations, the Party is organizing a memorial concert on August 20 at the Party monument in Ottawa. The monument is a granite-solid, red flag of internationalism, just as CPC(M-L) is, just as its founder and leader Comrade Hardial Bains was. The monument, like the August concert, is dedicated to Comrade Bains, who died August 24, 1997, and to all those who have given their lives to the cause of revolution and communism.

We take this opportunity to salute the firm stands, undaunted spirit and profound work of CPC(M-L) in the cause of communism, a cause which defends all humanity. We also recall with great fondness and vitality our comrade, our friend, Comrade Hardial Bains. Comrade Bains always, at every turn, supported, encouraged and assisted the communists of the United States. He did this with the internationalist spirit of the Party, by advancing the work in Canada and supporting the struggles of all peoples for progress and revolution. Perhaps most importantly he insisted that we must be our own models, stand on our own two feet by waging the struggle for revolution in the United States, and on that basis, stand together with workers and communists of all countries. He never let us forget the need for theory, to be guided by Marxism-Leninism and the need to carry out ideological and political work to bring forward the new. As he put it in Thinking About the Sixties, it is resolute defense of the new that creates conditions for defeat of the old — for fulfilling our duty to lead the battle to emancipate the working class and bring an end to U.S. imperialism.

At this time when the U.S. is doing everything to divide the people, and particularly to force the workers of the U.S. and Canada onto the side of war, we consider the strengthening of our relations and the deep unity we have forged together as a vital weapon against this reaction. We urge our readers to join us in strengthening this unity further. Read the latest work by Comrade Bains, Thinking About the Sixties, as well as Necessity for Change and Modern Communism. Discuss them and use them as a guide to action today. Join in discussions and joint actions. Make your contribution to the work of USMLO. Join in building the new!

To encourage this, we reprint in this issue an essay by Comrade Bains on human rights (see p.5). We urge everyone to read and discuss it together. We welcome letters and comments on it.

Red Salute to CPC(M-L)!

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The State of Human Rights After the Cold War — A Theoretical and Political Treatment

- Hardial Bains -

Voice of Revolution is posting excerpts from the essay by Comrade Hardial Bains The State of Human Rights After the Cold War — A Theoretical and Political Treatment. It is crucial reading to appreciate the significance of the right to conscience and how it must be affirmed. The essay is based on the paper delivered by Comrade Bains at the Seminar of the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups on "Theoretical and Political Aspects of the Struggle for Human Rights in India" held at St. Catherine's College, Oxford University, on May 9, 1992. It is published in pamphlet form and is available from USMLO.

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A right by definition is an act of being, whether the being is considered in the political, economic, social or any other sense. The fact that a right is even conceived presupposes both that it emanates from human beings and that, from the time of its conception, it will inescapably assume the form of a demand or a desire for fulfillment. Biological beings which do not possess human qualities are not in a position to either conceive or demand such rights. This is the case, for instance, with plants and animals, which derive such rights as they have (and which are then respected or violated) only in accordance with the rules and ethics of the social organization humans create. Thus a right is fundamentally a phenomenon of human civilization. To put the adjective human before the word right is of course redundant, but at the same time it shows what must be done to remind the powers-that-be that we are human beings and that we should be treated in a way which befits human beings. Only in this sense does the phrase human rights mean anything.

The coming into being of rights, by definition, also presupposes that human civilization would have advanced to the point where all human beings take the existence of rights as immutable, as given, as second nature to them. Humans must have acquired the facility of abstracting absence. After this point, even though the content of what are considered "rights" necessarily changes — in conjunction with the greater complexity of social being — human society is neither willing nor capable of transcending the fact that if a right does not have in it the inherent demand that it must not be violated, it is either merely a phrase or merely illusory, something which appears only in words and stays there.

A distinction, therefore, has to be made between a right which exists only in words and a right which comes into being out of the conditions and which, in turn, determines the very fate of those conditions. For example, human beings are not only social in the way they acquire their living, but in all aspects of their life, they constitute a break with the animal condition. This break with animal existence — with the vagaries of nature — places a new, vital condition on all humans, the condition of being. This condition of being dictates at the present time that not only must all life be carried out on the basis of social production, but that human beings must have a say in the production and reproduction of real life. The demand of a say emerges out of the condition of socialization and leads to further socialization. No longer can what goes on in life be justified merely on the basis that this is the way it is. The condition of being demands that everything be judged on the basis of the extent to which the conditions permit the actualization of human rights.

The demand for a right is an expression of the extent to which the human personality has developed in relation to the conditions of the times. We have in mind the human personality as a genre, as the quality of its times, and not the "quality" of this or that "race." The conditions of life undergo change, development and motion, and they do so spontaneously. There then comes a time when this very spontaneity demands that, as a precondition for the human personality to remain in step, the conditions themselves must change. A new basis must be created for a new spontaneity, and it is in this way that the human personality has evolved over the millennia. This evolution can be traced through many radical breaks between what existed before and what came into being, and this process gave rise to one new quality after another. Such a phenomenon can be seen in both nature and society. Evolution presupposes revolution, and the evolution of the human personality or civilization is an act of being which repeatedly invokes periods of revolution, periods of sudden changes with major consequences. The present period also has such a quality.

[...]

Going Beyond the Limitations

Over a period of forty years since the end of World War II, first the U.S. and then the Soviet Union raised their hand against the right to conscience. This right was held in such contempt that it was "granted" only on the basis of which camp an individual or a country belonged to. Following Winston Churchill's formal declaration of the Cold War in his Iron Curtain speech on March 5, 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, which put the right to conscience in utter disrepute in this period, U.S. President Harry S. Truman would make it a fact by calling upon the U.S. Congress to set aside millions of dollars to support the fascist forces in Greece. The aim was to ensure the defeat of the democratic struggle which was underway in Greece and thereby guarantee the geopolitical interests of the U.S. in that region. By this act, not only was Greece deprived of the right to self- determination but the Greek people were also stripped of their right to conscience. In the late fifties and thereafter, the world was to witness the Soviet Union also defining what was progressive on the basis of whether the country, organization or individual in question was its friend or enemy. What has become quite clear, as the dust of the past few years settles, is that the right to conscience is again being trampled underfoot by the national interests of the big powers, as they once more attempt to redivide the world between their own spheres of influence. Today, as it was in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere in the past, the right to conscience is said to belong only to those who are opposed to communism or who serve the interests of this or that power. In fact, such a right cannot be connected to this or that system but only to the act of being. Does it exist in real life or not? Is it inviolable or not? The judgment has to be made on the basis of the merit of the thing itself and not on the basis of whether or not invoking the right would help this or that power or this or that system. The right to conscience must, a fortiori, be a matter above such considerations. During this post-Cold War period, there is no need to issue an endless number of formal declarations. What is needed is to ensure that the right to conscience exists in fact and not as a mere formality. It has to be an integral, essential feature of the conditions in which people work and live and not a footnote which has no relevance to life.

Historically, rights have been conceived in different ways in different countries, but the content has always remained the same. This content pre-supposes that those who have the right to conscience are, by virtue of this fact, also free to make use of it as they see fit. In the European context, the period of the Renaissance brings us to the eve of modern times in this respect. Since that time, exercising the right to conscience has led to the overthrow of the conditions which block its realization. Starting in Italy in the 1400s, and eventually spreading to all of Europe, royal power broke the feudal authority of the nobles and created the great national monarchies, within which were developed the new modern states and the new bourgeois society. Later, during the period of Enlightenment which preceded the French Revolution, the right to conscience was conceived from the precept that "all men are born equal", this at a time when the official conception of rights was expressed in the famous declaration of Louis XIV: "L'Etat c'est moi". A clash ensued between these two conceptions of rights and gave rise to the French Revolution which struck a heavy blow at the basis of the old feudal power. The well-known slogans of the revolution of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" aroused people in Europe and North America and made them conscious of their rights within those conditions. Nonetheless these rights remained largely on paper, confined by the internal flaw of their conception. Rights conceived on the basis of a precept which merely proclaimed that "all men are born equal" but which did not try to eliminate the "social difference" were bound to remain unrealizable. Nor was the class which brought forth such a conception of rights interested in its embellishment. Once it acquired the political rights it had previously been denied, it failed to apply its slogans on a universal basis or without any kind of prejudice. It did not and could not go beyond these limitations. Until a class emerged in whose interest it was to do such a thing, the flaw in such a conception of the right to conscience and its limitation would remain.

For instance, the French Declaration of Rights proclaimed after the French Revolution contained in the original seventeen articles the "right to resist oppression", merely expressing the will of those who had themselves risen against oppression. They actually wrote this clause with the deeds. But this "right to resist oppression" disappeared from the Declaration of Rights in the 1795 Constitution, meaning that those who had become the rulers did not want to give anyone else the "right to resist oppression". At the same time, the 1795 Declaration of Rights kept the clause that "social differences can only be based on the general welfare", thereby providing the legal and juridical basis for the existence and continuation of "social differences". Such social differences were bound to transform themselves into open clashes, as had already occurred in 1789. This was the case in 1848 and again in 1871, with the Paris Commune, and many clashes have erupted since then. The social differences have only deepened and broadened from the period to the present and the right to conscience has remained a mere formality.

The ruling circles in Britain have played with the idea of the right to conscience for well over two hundred years, but they have never accepted it on face value. Their recoiling from a position of such vital importance can be seen in their promotion of the idea of "fair play" and "tolerance" as a substitute for the right to conscience. The universality of rights was reduced to depriving the people of the right to conscience, on the one hand, and giving favors, on the other. Ever since their new system, based on an alliance between the landlord class, the nobility and the mercantile class, began to take shape, the British ruling circles have had a strictly class definition of rights. In the opinion of Edmund Burke, British political theorist and member of parliament from 1766 to 1794, the right to conscience only belonged to the "historically evolved institutions" like the monarchy and the church, while the people were merely their "subjects". Burke mirrored what was happening in the sphere of that right at that time, and, to date, this is the state of the right to conscience in Britain. The monarchy, the church and parliament enjoy broad economic and political sanction, while the right to conscience remains a mere formality, a sphere of declamation contests between enthusiasts who have no intention to see it realized in real life.

The American revolution, exalted by the possibilities of independence and the opportunities which presented themselves on such a grand scale in the new world, did not reject the British idea of rights. The fathers of independence did not let the right to conscience develop creatively, by shedding its formal trappings and turning its essence into the means for the revolutionary transformation of society. From Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the Bill of Rights in 1791, when the first amendments to the U.S. Constitution were added under great pressure from the people, various rights were proclaimed; however, chattel- slavery was not abolished. Slavery, referred to as a "peculiar institution" was to remain intact for some seventy-five years after the proclamation of the Constitution, just as for its part, the French Constitution of 1791 stressed in a special article that "although the colonies and French possessions in Africa, Asia and America are part of the French empire, the Constitution aforesaid still does not extend to them." As a result of such limitations, the American war of independence never created a deep-going social revolution which could facilitate the flowering of human rights. Today, in the United States and elsewhere, the financial magnates rule with the support of the labor aristocracy and trample underfoot the rights of all others.

When the UN started work on a Declaration of Human Rights after World War II, the U.S., Britain, France and other countries exerted pressure so that the Universal Declaration would remain merely formal and have no real content. Rewriting many portions of the Geneva Draft which Committee No. 3 of the UN had prepared in 1947, the U.S. and other colonial powers ensured that the Declaration contained no measures which could facilitate the realization of the basic freedoms and human rights that it proclaimed. For example, they struck down a proposed amendment to Article 4 that "the state must ensure each person protection against criminal encroachments on his rights and provide the conditions preventing a threat of death from starvation and exhaustion."

The October Revolution in Russia, even though it provided every opportunity for the right to conscience to assume utmost importance in the lives of the people and society, eventually found its destruction in the inability to transcend the class conception which had become archaic and which had become merely a form through which new rising exploiting classes could fight to put the people down. Claims about the leading role of the working class and the truth of Marxism- Leninism were used to justify the building of an industrial and military complex for the conquering of the world. When time was ripe for the society to enshrine human rights, there arose those who took the road of attaining their own ambitions. The phrases remained, but the conception of rights began to serve the exploiting classes which had begun to resurface.

Today, in this post-Cold War period, the very act of being, whether of a nation, a collective or an individual, presupposes that they must have rights. From the realm of mere conceptions, a mere formality, the demand has come down to earth, it is fueling the conflict between those for whom a right is a mere formality and those who are not satisfied with such an offering singularly devoid of content. The end of the cold War has itself brought forth a storm which will only grow even more tempestuous, until the demand for human rights is fulfilled. Cold War camouflage pushed to the side that which was fighting to come to the fore: the right to conscience of all women and men. This camouflage has now been torn asunder. It comes as no surprise to hear from all corners of the earth the clamor of voices which are demanding their rights.

Clash Between Authority and Condition

The end of the Cold has opened the path for the momentous development of the movement for human rights, but it is not a one-sided development without any obstacle or opposition. At the present time, the abuse of human rights in the hands of the ruling circles in various countries has degenerated to the extent that there no longer seem to be any rights which are inviolable. An example of such abuse is the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) in India. Under this act, anyone's right can be taken away. This, however, is not the only thing wrong with it. The existence of such a law encourages the administration and police authorities to do whatever they wish. Anybody who challenges them could be detained under the TADA. It has happened in the case of justice Ajit Singh Bains. The act of being of the Indian government is taken to be a license to pass any laws and demand that everyone comply. Nothing else need be argued. Such a definition of a right is reminiscent of medieval times: when the kings and feudal lords of Europe justified their power because of their act of being sanctioned from divine right. More importantly, such a definition of rights holds in utter contempt the women and men who elaborated the right to conscience in India. The Indian state has usurped all the rights in the style of a European state, but it has forgotten about its duty. Such a rendering of political power negates all that Indians have given rise to over the millennia as regards the right to conscience and prosperity of all. Such an authority can make a decision and justify it simply on the grounds of its being, without having any interest in fulfilling its duty. This is why the people are also justified in overthrowing such an authority as an act of their being, the carrying out of their duty. According to the historically developed Indian view, conscience has a profound meaning which cannot be interpreted in this or that way. It can only be interpreted through the act of overthrowing that which causes oppression, confuses the mind, and stifles human initiative. For instance, the poor and the unemployed exist, and it is because they are poor and unemployed that they are demanding their rights. They are demanding the right to get out of their condition of being poor and unemployed. If we look at it from the idea of conscience as it developed in India, it is their duty to do such a thing. In the same way, when women demand to get out of their condition of being discriminated against and humiliated, they are also doing their duty to society. Various governments and international bodies such as the Security Council of the United nations Organization are, in a manner of speaking, justifying their decisions by asserting their right to take them on the basis of their mandate and are neglecting their duty, and the peoples are doing their duty by demanding their rights on account of their conditions of life. They are doing their duty by claiming their rights from the act of being in a definite conditions; they want to overcome that condition. A clash between the act of being, Authority, which refuses to do its duty, and the act of being, Condition, which is demanding that the people do their duty, is the order of the day. No authority can justify its neglect of duty without having the conditions back it up. In this respect, the act of being of the condition has assumed the primary position over the formalities and abstractions used as justifications by various authorities. When authorities do such a thing, the right to conscience is violated.

However, to divert attention from the fact that various authorities are not discharging their obligations, there is an attempt to confine the demand for human rights to the forms which suit these authorities. The resurgence of the demand for human rights is still being curtailed by the same bodies which evoked the defense of human rights for their own ends during the cold War period. Many examples can be given of this, but one thing is clear: the end of the cold War did not abolish the conditions which violated human rights. On the contrary, such violations have increased as the conditions have worsened. It is not accidental that in the post- Cold War period, the clash between authority and conditions has become the most salient feature. This is so because people are seeking to abolish the conditions which give rise to violations of human rights in the first place. They want to protect their right to conscience and use the content of their conscience to improve their condition of being.

It would not be helpful to suggest that the cause of the right to conscience would be served by opposing all authority. At the same time, it would not do to propose that no authority can be changed, any more than it would do to say that the right to conscience can be gained without overthrowing those conditions which obstruct it. What has to be stressed is that either the authority must bring about changes in the conditions, that is to shoulder its responsibilities so as to favor the right to conscience, or the conditions will continue to deteriorate until the people terminate the authority. In either case, it is the authority which is increasingly coming under fire and it is the conditions which are more and more crying out to be changed and an increasing number of people are coming forward to take up their duty. This is the content of the struggle for human rights in the post-Cold War period. As time passes, the form these demands for human rights will assume, in order to express their essence, will become increasingly clear. These forms will vary, but in every instance they will reflect the contradictory process posed by the clash between the claims of authority and the demands of the conditions. [...]

The right to conscience is a political and ideological question since its denial is clearly a political act. Revenge-seeking is not a political attitude. The cult of violence which the state practices is not a political attitude either. When the state carries out terrorism, then this shows that it has completely given up the political attitude. When the resistance also gives up the political attitude, then it stoops down to the level of the state and it is high time that the champions of the right to conscience intervene in such a situation. Unfortunately, as the authority gets increasingly discredited, it more and more resorts to unleashing anarchy and violence to prolong its life. The response to state terrorism and all individual acts of terrorism cannot be any form of terrorism. Those who champion the right to conscience know this all too well. It is only a political attitude which gives initiative and which creates the conditions for unity.

A vicious circle can be created, as it can be seen in various countries in this post-Cold War period. Many states, not just the U.S. and the state of Israel or Britain or India, justify their own terrorism on the basis of the claim that some other force is terrorist. More often than not in such cases, it is the authority which continuously creates a condition for individual acts of terrorism. It even finances such acts of terror and then uses them as a pretext to justify state terrorism. When a government claims to combat anarchy and violence through the massive use of force, by an all-round assault on the mass of the people and through their humiliation, it is not beyond belief that such a government may have created that anarchy and violence in the first place. Otherwise, it is not possible to have such a broad assault on the peoples as is taking place in various parts of the world today. Of course, such a government never stops claiming that it is innocent of any wrong-doing and that everything which is being done is for the well-being of the entire people and humanity. But the very act of being, the very existence of anarchy and violence, refutes such a claim. It is not difficult under such circumstances to retort that if such a government were fighting for the interests of the people, and were actually doing its duty, anarchy and violence would not take over. This is because the people, who despise anarchy and violence above all else, since they are the ones who suffer from it the most, would certainly side with such a government. Failing this, then, the only argument, the one which is justified by the conditions, takes over. The act of being is a far more convincing proof of the state of affairs in any society, even if billions of dollars are spent to cover it up. The act of being is what has to prevail. The act of being of conditions overrides any claims of authority.

Renewal and Disintegration

During the period of the Cold War, both sides justified their stands according to their interests. Such a justification, it seems, has now been transformed into the even more violent clash between the interests of the U.S., Japan and Germany and others, which is increasingly coming to the fore. There are clashes between what is justified by the authority and what is being demanded by the conditions. As a result, the call for the restoration of human rights and opposition to their violation is assuming even broader proportions. How should those who become the victims of the authority because of their being, because of their conditions which put them in a clash with the authority, justify the defense of their human rights? Should they do so because "all men are born equal", or on the basis of ideological and political pluralism, or because one class will guarantee the rights of its members over another? Should they do so on the basis of their right to conscience which includes integrally their duty to society, or should they justify their stand by claiming to be on the side of the U.S. or Germany or Japan or some other country? Take, for instance, the people of a nation within a state which is established beyond national lines as in the case of the British state. Suppose that such a state negates the rights of a nation which exists within it and that people of that nation feel that the state is oppressing their nation and is the cause of their backwardness, economic exploitation, poverty, cultural and social disintegration. Finally, suppose that they call for renewal and for the formation of a new state organized along national lines, following which the member nations, on the basis of an agreement, form an equal union. Clearly, those who demand such a thing claim that a renewal is necessary in Britain, as elsewhere, but the authorities may interpret such a demand for renewal, such a plan where new states are created on the basis of the rights of all, to be seditious. They may then begin to take away the rights which people have and unleash violence and anarchy to crush the struggle. Imagine that, on one hand, the people are persecuted in a broad way and, on the other hand, some international power or powers take advantage of the situation and begin to finance anarchy and violence. It is the cause of the people of all lands, their right to conscience, their human rights, which would be the first casualty. Such things are happening in various parts of the world. Yugoslavia is a case in point, but it is not the only one. The Yugoslav federation disintegrated in a matter of a few months because the authority in Yugoslavia did not heed the people's right to conscience nor the right of its member nations to self-determination. It did not do its duty to its member republics or to the people co-habiting within that federation. Yugoslavia opted for disintegration but not for renewal. This could not but be used by those foreign powers which had an interest in breaking up this federation.

My thesis is that if vigilance about these fundamental questions like the right to conscience is not kept, the end of the cold War, far from leading to renewal, will take us hundreds of years back. This will be a great tragedy and a setback for the struggle for human rights, for the amelioration of the human personality and dignity. Worse still, it would mean the physical extermination of hundreds and thousands of people in various regions of the world and a broad-scale devastation. Whether or not the right to conscience, which is sometimes presented as merely a demand in the constitutional and juridical sphere, exists in real life, will actually determine whether a people live or die. It is the fundamental question of our time, along with matters related to the nature of a state, ifs form of organization and the economic system. It is at a par with these, and it actually overrides them in its importance.

It can be seen that the developments on the world-scale and in India point to the need for renewal but this cannot take place without the right to conscience. This must be stressed at this time because the experience of the past forty years since the war is convincingly showing that by depriving the people of the right to conscience, authority is being turned into a cult and conditions are being worshipped as final and immutable.

When everything is said and done, rights can only find their concretization in the solution of the problems facing a modern society, be they related to the economic well-being of the people or to the peace and harmony between peoples within a nation or between nations, or to matters of a spiritual and social nature. Rights will be realized when authority changes the conditions in favor of the people and the people carry out their duty by ensuring that authorities do such a thing. People can perform their duty only if they have the right to conscience. This struggle, then, is the fulcrum on which the uplifting of the world and its renewal rests.

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